


Euphora

by fannishliss



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: M/M, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 01:25:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1669574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight rescues Jack from a Dalek-ravaged planet during the Time War. Jack’s feelings for the Doctor are revealed, despite the risk to the timelines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Euphora

**Title:** Euphora  
 **Author:** [](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/profile)[**fannishliss**](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/)  
 **Recipient:** [](http://scifiangel.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://scifiangel.livejournal.com/)**scifiangel**  
 **Rating:** Mature  
 **Pairing(s):** Jack/Eighth Doctor  
 **Spoilers/warnings:** none  
 **Summary:** Eight rescues Jack from a Dalek-ravaged planet during the Time War. Jack’s feelings for the Doctor are revealed, despite the risk to the timelines.  
 **Author’s Notes:** at the end. Special thanks to [redacted] for the quick beta!

**

===

Over the long, long years of his life, Jack had gotten pretty good at fixing the vortex manipulator. He’d had it working fairly well, but this latest trip had gone very wrong. Jack had just wanted a little vacation, but instead of ending up on Euphora, at the height of one of the most enlightened and open-minded civilizations ever, Jack had ended up on the same planet, but three thousand years later, while the planet was being ravaged by Daleks.

Jack was crouched in a ruined building, wedged into a corner and trying not to get himself killed (again). Dalek troops were methodically scouting the wreckage around him, and they had life sign detectors. Above all else, Jack couldn’t risk being captured by Daleks, as they sometimes converted their victims instead of simply killing them, so Jack had already resorted to suicide several times in order to avoid capture. It wasn’t pleasant, but at least it was a tactic the Daleks were unlikely to figure out.

While stranded on Euphora, Jack spent his time salvaging electronics and tech components in order to try to repair his manipulator. He’d already been on the planet for several years, with no luck, while he’d watched the Euphoran civilization dwindling around him— the people who had been so beautiful, lighthearted, and loving, were reduced to hardened warriors, clinging desperately to life by tooth and nail. Almost none were left, leaving Jack alone. Maybe soon the Daleks would move on, and he’d have some peace until a new era came along. Jack would weather it out somehow. He’d outlived everyone around him numerous times before. Still, he never got used to it.

He was tinkering with a bit of tech, hoping to extract some key components, when he was astonished to hear that wonderful sound — that incredible sound that was burned deep into his brain and secreted deep inside his heart — the grinding, singing, otherworldly cry of the Tardis as she materialized.

He took off running at top speeds toward that beloved noise, dodging from cover to cover. The Tardis sounded so near! He had to make it, he had to.

Jack’s heart sank as, from behind him, came the dreaded mechanical shriek: “HALT HUMAN! OBEY! OR BE EXTERMINATED!”

Jack zigged and zagged — he’d spotted a telltale hint of blue behind some nearby rubble. If he could make it just a little bit farther —

“EXTERMINATE!”

Searing agony tore through his nerves, undoing him down to the bone. With eyes fixed, unseeing, on the Tardis, Jack died.

—

Coming back to life could be horribly gruesome for Jack. He’d lived through complete disintegrations more than once, but luckily, his physical form did not really allow him to regain consciousness until it had mostly rebuilt itself. Worse was coming back underwater, or buried alive, when he’d glimpse consciousness, panic, scrabble, and die again, time after time, until conditions somehow changed. Jack didn’t really understand how he’d retained his sanity after the countless deaths he’d suffered. But somehow, his resurrections included the restoration of his personality, his memories (even the ones he tried so hard to forget), and his sanity, such as it was.

As coming back to life went, this was no hardship. He was all in one piece — no regrowing of missing parts. He gasped in a breath and felt sweet, clean air fill his lungs. He felt … perfect, actually. He wasn’t frozen, or on fire, and nothing had been crushed. In fact, he seemed to be naked, in bed, and unless he was mistaken, these sheets were silk of the very highest quality.

What was even better, he recognized that humming, that pleasant song that sang to itself just behind his consciousness. He was on board the Tardis. The Doctor had found him.

Jack, in all honesty, didn’t want to move. He’d been fighting for survival on Euphora for years. He’d seen friend after friend fall to the mercilessness of the Daleks, who picked off the population relentlessly, no matter how hard they tried to hide. The spirit of the Euphoran people had been strong. They remembered the beauty of their fallen civilization, and never ceased to dream of one day restoring it, even after their numbers had dwindled to almost nothing. Jack had fought with everything he had to protect them. But what difference could he really make? The Euphorans had never developed high-powered weaponry. War was anathema to who they were. Jack tried to lead them, but all he could do was help them try to hide, or teach them how to lay traps that might at least slow the Daleks down.

Now, he finally had a chance to rest, to relax, to gather his strength, to feel clean again at long last, to stretch and smile, and lie back with his eyes closed just a little longer.

Someone knocked on the door. Jack wondered if the Doctor was traveling with someone — why else would they bother to knock?

A curly head poked around the corner.

“My ship says you’re awake. I just wanted to reassure you that you’re out of danger — and breakfast is ready.”

“Doctor?” Jack guessed, putting two and two together.

“Yes?” the Time Lord answered. His voice was sweet and cultured, but he sounded wary.

Jack thought fast. If the Doctor didn’t recognize him, that meant this was a younger, rather than an older incarnation, and Jack didn’t want to reveal too much. He’d gotten access to some UNIT files at one point, but even UNIT didn’t have much information on the Time Lord except for case files when he’d worked closely alongside them. Luckily, UNIT had always been at odds with the more reactionary Torchwood, so Jack’s employers had known little about the Doctor’s earlier incarnations, and Jack had been at pains to keep it that way.

“Thanks for bringing me on board,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” the Doctor said with a bright smile.

They stared at one another for a moment, till Jack cleared his throat. “Are there any clothes?” he asked.

“Of course,” the Doctor laughed, a sweet, merry laugh Jack had never heard before. He’d always wondered what the Doctor had sounded like, when he was younger. “I’ve had the clothes you were wearing cleaned, such as they were, and there are things that will fit you in the wardrobe. Take your time, there’s no hurry.”

The Doctor left and closed the door behind him, so Jack swung himself out of bed. The Tardis was playing some sort of trans-temporal trick on him. The Doctor clearly hadn’t met him yet, but the rug was the same that his first Doctor had bought for him on Galafagos, after they’d taken Rose to meet the giant turtles. The blue and silver yarn of the rug was so familiar. It had belonged to him for a little under a year, yet his toes remembered the soft wool perfectly.

His clothes had worn down to little more than rags on Euphora, but what was left of them was neatly folded in the bureau, along with the kinds of underclothes and socks he preferred in the top drawer, and tee shirts and trousers to his measure in the second and third. Opening the wardrobe, he found shirts, much finer than anything he’d worn in quite a long while, and what was most shocking — his old military coat. He pulled it out of the wardrobe and just looked at it. That twentieth-century army issue coat had been his dearest possession, after the manipulator, for years. But nothing lasts forever, as Jack knew only too well. Now, here was a perfect replica, a gift from the Tardis and her ability to make anything out of nothing.

“Thanks,” he whispered, a huge swell of gratitude surging up in his heart. He took a deep breath and let it all out, then got dressed. Snapping his suspenders over his shoulders, he felt almost like he was in costume as the man he’d once been. But, thanks to the uncanny stabilizing influence of his resurrections, centuries had passed and he was still that same man, weighed down by memory and experience, but fundamentally unchanged.

He wandered out and trusted the Tardis to lead him to the console room.

Sure enough, he reached it directly, but it wasn’t what he expected. It was a vast, vaulted, wood-paneled room, like a chapel in a Victorian folly. The console and time rotor blended in discreetly with the rest of the furnishings.

He gaped in awe. The Doctor caught him staring.

“It’s bigger on the inside,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.

“Of course,” Jack breathed, still staring. He knew the Tardis was capable of great changes, but he hadn’t ever imagined her looking … less technological.

“Are you familiar with Time Lord technology?” the Doctor asked, a little more reserved.

“Not as such, “ Jack lied. “Only the rumors.”

“Oh,” the Doctor said, watching him closely.

“Doctor, I have to tell you something,” Jack said in a rush. Best to get it over with. “I know you. If you don’t recognize me, it means I’m from your future. You should probably put me out as soon as you can, and try to forget you ever met me.”

“Ha!” the Doctor laughed. “Try — try to forget you! That’s a lark! Do you realize how much time I’ve devoted in this incarnation to trying to remember my friends? And now, you’re telling me to forget you!” The Doctor’s voice wasn’t as bitter as Jack might’ve expected, given his words. There was something so young, so optimistic about this Doctor. Something that had crushed him hadn’t happened yet—almost certainly something to do with the Daleks and the war he’d fallen into. No wonder he’d been pulled off course; the Time War had cause massive fluctuations in reality that could barely be comprehended by humans. Euphora was probably only involved in the very edge of it.

“I’m just trying to protect your timeline,” Jack explained.

The Doctor laughed again. “All I’ve been doing lately is run hither and yon trying to clean up the Time Lords’ messes in this War of theirs. Every timeline in the universe is currently imperiled! Mine is the least of my worries.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Jack guessed.

“I see that your time signature is distinctly unusual,” the Doctor said lightly. “And you’re wearing the vortex manipulator of a Time Agent — but it’s badly broken, and no one has come for you, so you’re clearly no longer recognized by the Agency.”

“Correct on all counts, of course,” Jack acknowledged. He’d never learned why he’d been disavowed by the Agency, but that was something that had ceased to matter to him ages ago.

“The first thing I’ll do for you, then, is repair that manipulator,” the Doctor said.

“I would really appreciate that,” Jack answered, gratefully. It was a crutch, he knew, being able to jaunt about through time and space — but it was one thing that made his existence just a little more bearable, not something he could easily pass up.

“Did you enjoy breakfast?” the Doctor asked.

“No, I — I came straight here,” Jack asked. He’d been near starvation for so long on Euphora that he’d simply forgotten that food was on offer.

“Let’s sit down with a cuppa and chat,” the Doctor said, smiling. “Shall we?”

Jack was taken aback by the Doctor’s open friendliness. The first incarnation he’d known had been standoffish, almost cold, while the second had found him repulsive due to his wrongness in the time stream.

“My anomalous timestream doesn’t pain you?” Jack asked, following the Doctor down the corridor to the galley.

“No,” the Doctor said, shrugging. “Not overly.”

“That’s — that’s good,” Jack said. Hearing the Doctor dismiss Jack’s anomaly was a huge relief. The Doctor had abandoned him, casting him adrift in times not his own, and when Jack had finally caught up to him, he’d been treated with disdain. But this Doctor didn’t feel that way. Jack wondered what the difference might be, but _Why can you stand to be around me?_ wasn’t a question he was prepared to ask.

The Doctor, as promised, prepared tea and produced biscuits for himself, plus toast and jam for Jack to eat for breakfast. Jack ate the toast in small bites, not wanting to overwhelm his empty stomach too quickly with sweet starches.

“So, when do you originate?” the Doctor asked.

“Fifty-first Century,” Jack answered.

“Ahh,” the Doctor replied, leaning back in his kitchen chair, feet up on the rungs. “That explains the pheromones.” He breathed in deeply, closing his eyes in appreciation, as though savoring the bouquet of a fine wine.

Jack blushed. Most people he met didn’t know about the pheromones, and simply found Jack very attractive. The Doctor would not be one of those people, would he? But why hadn’t he mentioned it when they first met? Jack had always suspected the Doctor enjoyed flirting, but wouldn’t let anything actually happen. The man he was now seemed a bit more dangerous in that way.

Jack, though he most certainly didn’t want to, needed to shut this situation down before it got out of hand.

“Doctor — I’m from your future. It doesn’t seem wise for us to be — too intimate—“

“Let me be the judge of that,” the Doctor murmured. Leaning forward, he reached across the table to Jack, wrapping his elegant, long-fingered hand around the back of Jack’s neck.

Jack was frozen, toast in hand, an almost painful surge of arousal taking him over at the Doctor’s touch.

“Having forgotten so much, so many things of extreme importance,” the Doctor said low, “I’ve learned to rely more on my instincts, and on reading people, rather than just assuming that what I think I know about them is true.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Jack said, frowning. “If you trust your instincts, then you are relying on what you think you know.”

“No,” the Doctor said, playing lightly with the back of Jack’s neck. “My intellect may be devoid of facts about you— I don’t even know your name — but my observations tell me a great deal. You’ve been in love with me for a very long time. You’re loyal to me. You would die for me. In fact — you have died for me. Many times…. which has something to do with the anomaly. I’ve kissed you,” the Doctor narrowed his eyes, “but only once. Why only once? Am I then to be so very cruel?”

Jack felt himself coming undone under the Doctor’s implacable, compassionate gaze, his steady stream of deductions taking Jack apart.

“I don’t mind,” Jack heard himself whisper. He licked his lips to clear them of crumbs.

“Oh, my dear,” the Doctor said, tears rushing to his eyes. “I’ve hurt you, terribly. I’m so sorry.” He didn’t remove his hand, and Jack leaned into it gratefully.

“It, it’s okay,” Jack said, his voice rough. “It’s been a long time, now.”

“Let me make it up to you,” the Doctor said, earnest blue eyes shining.

“What is this?” Jack demanded. “The Doctor I knew would never — never —“

“I’ve been cruel too many times,” the Doctor said. “I’m sorry. I would like to be kind.”

After surviving the Doctor’s neglect for centuries, Jack wasn’t sure if his kindness would be any easier to survive. In Jack’s head, the Doctor was always out there, somewhere. It made Jack’s lonely existence almost bearable to know that the Doctor was in it with him. Even if they weren’t together, not even in the same timeframe, the Doctor was still out there, somewhere, somewhen, somehow thinking of Jack, while Jack, in his weakness, thought of the Doctor.

“Tell me your name,” the Doctor said.

“I don’t know my name,” Jack whispered with shame. “It was taken from me by the Time Agency.”

The Doctor cringed in sympathy. “I know how that is. But, the advantage to losing a name is choosing a new one. What have you chosen?”

“Jack,” he whispered. His heart was pounding like he was running a race. “I’m called Jack.”

The Doctor’s eyes were such a beautiful blue in this incarnation — so similar to the first Doctor Jack had known, and so compelling, even before one did the work of getting to know the man behind it. Those gorgeous blue eyes lit up at Jack’s name.

“Jack!” he said, laughing. “Jack! That’s a lovely name. Tell me — are you a trickster? Do you slay giants?”

Jack grinned, and felt some kind of happiness welling up inside him. “Maybe,” he allowed, a little coy.

“Oh, oh yes!” the Doctor crowed. “Perfect trickster response! I can see why I love you.”

Jack was jarred back into reality by the Doctor’s unlooked for phrase. “Love?” he said, dubious.

“Of course!” the Doctor smiled. He drew his hand away from Jack’s neck, entwining their fingers instead. “I really must grow more contrary than ever in my old age. Jack, when a Time Lord loves, it creates a bond that can’t be broken. It rings out, throughout time, resonating through every life, alerting us to our loved ones whenever we come across them. It can be a little tantalizing, the silent potentialities waiting inside me, loves I haven’t met yet — but the benefits outweigh the costs. How do you think I found you in that Dalek-infested wasteland?”

“I just assumed the Tardis detected the anomaly,” Jack said weakly.

“I don’t know what I’ve told you, or why, but this anomaly of yours — while unique in some ways — isn’t blasting out a warning like a pulsar across the cosmos or anything.” The Doctor frowned at Jack, peering at him. “The vortex has an anchor in you — actually, it’s not that different from how the Tardis moors herself in Time, only, somewhat in reverse. it’s no wonder your manipulator keeps breaking down.”

Jack didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Here was the Doctor explaining away the mysteries of his existence — in the same breath discounting the so-called horror of his anomaly, and at the same time informing Jack casually that they were linked by an eternal bond of love that the Time Lord would always be able to sense, no matter where or when they met.

“But why then,” Jack begged, brokenly, “Why did you leave me?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said, plaintively. “There’s something very dark, very bad, very opaque in my near future. I can’t see beyond it, no matter what. I’ve been thinking it was to be my utter destruction. But if you know me later, it must be something else.”

“You survive,” Jack blurted, at once. To hell with continuity. “You live.”

“That’s good, I suppose,” the Doctor sighed. “But I don’t sound very nice, I must say.”

“You are,” Jack breathed, “very nice.”

The Doctor looked more deeply into Jack’s eyes. “Would you like to get a little more comfortable?” he asked.

“Yes!” Jack agreed with enthusiasm.

The Doctor lifted Jack’s hand to his lips, and kissed it tenderly. “I don’t know how long I can let you stay,” the Doctor said. “I know something terrible is just about to happen. I want you well away by then.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Jack said. “I’ve spent too long without you already.”

“I hope some future me will come to his senses and find you again,” the Doctor said. “There’s paradox here. I don’t understand it. But if I must forget you, know that it can never be a complete forgetting. Know, that I have always loved you, and always will, time immemorial.”

“I love you too, Doctor,” Jack promised.

“I know,” the Doctor said, and gently brought his lips to Jack’s.

Jack breathed him in. There it was, that old familiar scent, that taste he hadn’t ever forgotten, over untold hundreds of deaths. A faint taste of honey, a sharper, spicy taste of cinnamon or cloves, a vague hint of citrus. It was the Doctor, himself, unforgettable, impossible to duplicate.

Jack had yearned for this moment, it felt, for nearly his whole life — the moment when the Doctor, at last, would give in, and make that connection real between them that Jack had always felt in its nascent state without fully understanding why.

Now, the Doctor was taking hold of Jack, pulling him in, owning him. Jack could hardly bear it — the wait had been so long, so many centuries of dreaming of this very moment, the moment when the Doctor said, Yes, Yes, Jack, Yes.

He could hear the Doctor’s thoughts, just beyond the boundary of his consciousness.

“Lock away as much as you think you need to,” the Doctor thought — “but please, let me in.”

“Can we please take this to the bedroom?” Jack said, out loud.

“Oh!” The Doctor laughed. He pulled back, panting, flushed, and smiling widely. “Of course! I got carried away, didn’t I?”

The Doctor lifted a hand, and Jack could almost feel him, thinking very hard to the Tardis. They exited the galley, turned left, and the Doctor opened the first door on the right.

“Please,” the Doctor said, ushering Jack inside.

It was a gorgeous bedroom, simply gorgeous. Furthermore, it was typical Euphoran furnishings from the era Jack had been hoping to visit when he’d gone astray. The Tardis was reading their minds again. Jack sent her a silent thanks, and felt a little brush against the back of his mind, that told him his thanks was appreciated.

It was a fully furnished Euphoran love nest, the kind of place where lovers could live for days without needing to leave. There was a full bath ensuite, and a small kitchenette along one wall and chairs and a table. There were windows that seemed to look out on a rushing ocean; open, they let in a salty breeze. Most importantly, the bed was enormous, low, and piled with soft pillows and silky smooth sheets.

“Like it?” the Doctor purred.

Jack was astonished. What had happened to this man, to change him so radically from this open, carefree person, to the wounded, cautious pessimist he’d become? What had the Time War done to him?

What could Jack do to stop it? In truth, could anything Jack did now, even matter in the long run, against the enormity of the War?

“Don’t think too hard,” the Doctor murmured. “I know. It’s coming. It’s soon. But it’s not here yet. Be with me now — be here with me, Jack. Just give me something beautiful to hold onto in the midst of all this ugliness and horror.”

“But — “ Jack didn’t honestly know why he was protesting. Things had never been easy between himself and the Doctor, so he guessed that was part of why he was having a hard time just relaxing.

“The fifty-first-century Humans I’ve known have been a touch more enthusiastic about sex,” the Doctor teased, examining his fingernails.

“Doctor!” Jack exclaimed. “Don’t you dare accuse me of being repressed!”

The Doctor just challenged Jack with his veiled blue eyes, till Jack couldn’t stand it anymore.

He gave up, swept in and gathered the Time Lord into his arms, kissing him like there was no tomorrow— which, maybe there wasn’t. Who knew when his luck (if you could call it that) might finally run out, and he’d face a singularity more dire than himself. He had the Doctor in his arms — the Doctor! A warmer, wilder, more willing Doctor than Jack had ever known, and he’d have to be crazy to let this chance pass him by.

The Doctor was slightly smaller than Jack in this incarnation. He tilted his head up and enthusiastically returned Jack’s kisses. Jack’s head spun with the knowledge that the Doctor’s sweet moans, his stuttered breath, eager lips and questing tongue, were all for him. The Doctor’s strong arms pulled him close; his hips slotted against Jack’s; they were melded together from chest to knee.

Their kiss became more heated. The Doctor arched his neck and let Jack devour him, holding Jack close and moaning his name. Jack still couldn’t believe he had finally gotten here — but maybe this was it — maybe Time Lords didn’t —

Jack broke off, gasping for breath, and leaning his forehead against his smiling companion, who watched him with a broad smile and twinkling eyes.

“Doctor — I don’t — I didn’t think you — “ Jack stuttered.

“Would you like me to take the lead, Jack?” the Doctor offered, cutting to the point.

“Stars, yes!” Jack exclaimed.

“All right then, fifty-first-century boy — get naked for me. I don’t want those gorgeous pheromones trapped in your clothes. And the Tardis may be good at choosing clothes for guests, but I’d prefer to focus on what’s under them. Quickly, quickly!” the Doctor urged.

Jack tore off his clothes in no time flat, then blushed as the Doctor looked him over.

“Gorgeous,” the Doctor said. “Those shoulders! Those legs! That arse!”

Jack couldn’t help flexing a little under the scrutiny, and wrinkled his nose in shyness.

“Now, Jack, wouldn’t you like to unwrap this package?” the Doctor asked.

The Doctor with his long curls looked like a Romantic poet, and his cravat and lacy cuffs completed the image. Jack undid the cravat and opened the shirt, kissing his way in as he uncovered the Doctor’s chest. He was right, it was like unwrapping a package. Jack kissed the Doctor’s sternum and felt the two hearts beating like mad. Jack went on to unbutton the gorgeously embroidered green velvet waistcoat, and then the Doctor’s chest was bared. Jack feasted his eyes, kissing one nipple lightly to hear him hiss, and the other more aggressively to hear him groan. Jack soothed the soft skin of the Doctor’s cool sides with his hands, marveling that such a miraculous being as the Doctor seemed so like any man, when Jack knew so well that he was unique among all creation.

“Would you like to see the rest of me?” the Doctor murmured.

“Ah, yes,” Jack said, and a powerful wave of lust crashed over him.

The Doctor breathed deep. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, appreciatively.

Jack knelt and pulled off the Doctor’s boots, then peeled down his trousers, and the Doctor was naked before him.

“Have me, Jack,” the Doctor said as Jack stood again. “I feel like this moment has been forever in coming.”

“It has,” Jack said fervently. “I almost can’t believe you’re really here, this is really happening.”

“May I —“ the Doctor said, fingers rising toward Jack’s temples.

“Please!” Jack said.

“Don’t worry, I won’t pry,” the Doctor said, and Jack did one last mental inventory, slamming the hatches here and there as the Doctor trickled in like a fresh spring breeze.

Jack felt all the hair on his body stand up as it registered the Doctor’s presence in his mind — so alien — so powerful — so vast — but so gentle, so loving, and so beloved. That cosmic storm of crimson and gold, that pounding surf of power, that lightning intellect — it was the Doctor, everything Jack had loved for so long, and feared he might have lost forever.

“Jack, beloved!” the Doctor said. “Oh, my dear, you are perfect! Look at you, how you shine!”

Jack wasn’t sure what the Doctor saw in his psyche, but if it didn’t make him retch and run that was good enough for Jack.

Then the Doctor sank a little deeper, and Jack shuddered at the powerful intimacy.

They were still standing, the Doctor was swaying very gently against him, and inside Jack’s head there was music, wild ancient music — not like Humans would make — the song of Time itself.

“Feel how she loves you,” the Doctor murmured inside Jack. “Marking you as Hers, forever and ever, marking you as Mine.”

“Who?” Jack asked, barely daring to question.

“Time,” the Doctor thought. “All of Time herself, crystallized down into one purest Moment, to keep you forever. Who did you think — the big bad wolf?”

An echoing howl rang faintly in the distance. Jack had never quite teased out what Bad Wolf had done — what Bad Wolf even was — but apparently it wanted the Doctor happy. Jack could go along with that.

“There’s that paradox again,” the Doctor grumbled. “Can’t you just kiss me and stop thinking questions?”

The Doctor’s irritated gripe made Jack laugh with joy. He was always the same man, no matter how he differed outwardly.

Jack maneuvered the Doctor toward the low bed, crowing with delight as the Doctor overbalanced and fell back amongst the pillows and cushioned, looking for all the world like a captive prince tossed into a seraglio.

Jack dove in after him, kissing and licking and biting the Doctor wherever he wanted — his earlobes, his collarbones, his biceps, his nipples, his tummy, his thighs, his sides. And there between the Doctor’s legs, the treasure — the Doctor’s genital slit, where his organ was hidden away. Moist, it smelled delightfully of honey. Jack couldn’t resist diving in for a lick.

“Jack! oh, Jack! oh, love! Ah, ah!” The Doctor quivered in Jack’s strong grip, but Jack had a grip on his hips and wouldn’t let him move. The Doctor was strong, but Jack was heavy and determined.

He darted his tongue lightly along the honeyed slit, loving to hear the Doctor’s keening.

“Please, please,” the Doctor cried.

“What?” Jack asked, moving up to kiss his lips. The Doctor’s tongue came out and he groaned to taste his own flavor on Jack.

“Just hold me against you — you’ll see,” the Doctor promised.

“Okay,” Jack said, game and curious.

He pulled the Doctor into his arms, and they lay for a moment, skin to cool, Gallifreyan skin. The Doctor’s body temperature was significantly lower than Jack’s, but Jack felt warm, and as he thought about it, the feeling strengthened as though something in the Doctor were reaching out to embrace him, enveloping him.

“What — what is that, Doctor?”

“That’s our bond, Jack — it’s settling in. Isn’t it wonderful?”

The Doctor’s open, relaxed smile was the most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen. He shivered against the Doctor, the physical coolness a tantalizing contrast to the heat the Doctor was raising in him with the bond.

Lying so close to the Doctor, they were snuggled together, groin to groin.

“Do you like being naughty?” the Doctor said playfully.

“Yes,” Jack said, laughing.

“This is the naughtiest thing in the universe — sex with a Time Lord,” he whispered, scandalously.

“Ooh,” Jack smiled.

“This bond is unbreakable,” the Doctor smiled. “No matter how much they might disapprove, they can’t do anything to stop it — they can’t ever take you away from me, and I would follow you till the end of time.”

Jack felt a pang as he wondered why and how the Doctor’s feelings had changed — why he’d run away from his bonded beloved, if all this were true.

“Oh, Jack,” the Doctor said, holding him a little more tightly. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine why I’ve let you suffer. Being a complicated trans-temporal entity does have its disadvantages. But this bond is nearly complete now — and from now on — you are my bonded. In some sense, though I should have recognized you, you weren’t yet my bonded for my future selves. How they must’ve longed for you! How frightened for you they must’ve been to push you away!”

“Frightened? for me?” Jack said. He’d never looked at it like that before.

“I think you’d have to admit that I’m target number one for many destructive forces in this universe, Jack,” the Doctor said gravely. “I don’t invite anyone into that life lightly, because I’ve been forced to admit how much danger it puts them in.”

“So, you pushed me away for my sake?” Jack said. “What an awful idea!”

“Please, Jack,” the Doctor begged, snuggling impossible closer to him. “Something terrible is looming on my horizon. I need you. I need you to be there on the other side, waiting for me. I know you’re strong enough — you’ve already lived through it, haven’t you?”

Jack nodded.

“It’s almost like a labyrinth. You’ve wound your way all the way in. Now, I’ll meet you again once you wind your way back out.” The Doctor smiled widely, eyes flashing at the brilliance of his own metaphor.

“I’m not gonna tell you no, Doctor,” Jack said. “Whatever you want, whatever you need from me, take it. I’m yours.”

“Oh, Jack!” The Doctor cried, and the warmth around Jack pulsed, intensified, and tightened, pulling Jack inside it, sinking deep inside him.

Pleasure built in every cell throughout his body, seizing Jack with a paroxysm so far beyond orgasm that Jack didn’t even know how to quantify it. Like sinking into a hot bath at the end of a long day; like laughing with joy at some clever joke shared with a treasured friend; like coming together with a lover whose bodily desires mesh perfectly with your own — Jack felt all these things, but all at once, and so intensely he could hardly cope with it. The Doctor’s sex had emerged and was pressed tight against his own, throbbing with an almost electric energy that sizzled against Jack, triggering waves of bliss Jack had never dared imagine. The all-consuming intensity of the Doctor’s passion seized Jack’s whole body like the embrace of a god, shaking his very being, taking him up into a high that felt like it would never end — like it never could end — like Jack was tapping directly into the miraculous heart of the universe itself— and maybe he was.

This was what it meant to be beloved by the Doctor.

“Mine,” Jack heard, as if the cosmos itself were singing. “Mine, mine always!” The Doctor claimed him utterly, and Jack yielded himself, until he could give no more.

Jack gave himself to the Doctor, and the Doctor claimed him, all the way down to his soul. Jack cast off his centuries of loneliness and found his place in the Doctor’s embrace, surrounded by the comforting rhythm of the Doctor’s beating hearts, held in the Doctor’s strong embrace — and doing his best to return that favor, letting the Doctor know that he, Jack, had already survived the Time War and its repercussions, that he had seen who the Doctor become, and fallen in love with him even then — even though he was a little more mad and broken, angrier and more desperate than he’d ever been before. Even though the Doctor had cast Jack aside, Jack had still loved him, and that generous love was strong enough to carry both of them into a future where they might be together, a future neither had really dared to hope existed.

Outside the windows, in a room on the Tardis, a sun seemed to shine down on crashing surf. It was a moment pulled out of time — a perfect moment in two long, eventful lives — lives now forever linked, despite all the twisted timelines that had tried to tear them apart.

***  
They traveled on together for a while, happy and loving, but the War always loomed, a shadow across their incandescent happiness. The call came at last, and the Doctor had to answer. The Doctor’s old friend Romana needed him back on Gallifrey for the last desperate phase of the War, and the Doctor refused to risk Jack to the terrible battles to come.

Jack swore not to let his heart break as the Tardis dematerialized.

Jack would have insisted, but he knew how much the Doctor was counting on Jack to survive, to be there for him in the future, after he himself got through whatever horrors lay in store. And Jack was the very best in all the universe at surviving, so he went.

The Tardis faded from view, and Jack was left alone on a beautiful beach. The Doctor had gotten them far, far away from Euphora, someplace as distant as he could get from the tumult of the Time War. And he’d made sure the Manipulator was working better than ever.

Jack felt his coat tails whipping around his legs in the ocean breeze, feeling almost reborn. The Doctor loved him, had always loved him — it wasn’t Jack’s wishful thinking, it was a fact. And someday, he’d come for Jack, and they’d travel together once again.

Jack started walking down the beach. It was a pretty, sunny day, a little cool, and Jack had nowhere in particular to be, but a working manipulator on his wrist and psychic paper in his pocket.

Then he heard that familiar grinding roar, and whirled around just as the Tardis settled with a clunk.

Jack sprinted to the Tardis and bounded, laughing, through the familiar blue doors.

Inside, the Doctor wore the form of the man who’d betrayed him during the terrible confrontation with the 456, one of the worst enemies Jack had ever encountered.

“Hi Jack,” the Doctor said, poking randomly at the console. “Sorry about this fucking face,” he said, frowning.

“What face?” Jack said, and swept his lover into his arms, kissing away the loneliness of millennia, again.

===

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's Notes:**  
>  In this story I responded to several of my recipient’s wishes.  
>  == Jack gets his vortex manipulator working, or he thinks he does. But somehow he ends up in the time war and meets Eight. Things my recipients likes: fluff, first time, hurt/comfort, smut!, romance, comrades-in-arms that end as comrades-in-bed.  
>  == Jack is trapped in a bad situation (in this case, the Time War, just as things are starting to get really bad) with a past Doctor (in this case, Eight) and can't tell the Doctor that he knows him or risk messing up the timelines. (The Doctor solves this quandary for Jack pretty neatly by disregarding the danger.)  
>  == Introspective on Jack's thoughts and feelings about his love for the Doctor.  
>  == Post-Torchwood Jack meets either Eleven or Twelve and the Doctor finally admits his feelings for the Captain. — I hope you recognize Capaldi!Doctor at the end. :)


End file.
